Customer Reviews

Western Digital My DVR Expander 1 TB eSATA External Hard Drive

5 star:		(133)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

If you're a Tivo owner with a HD Tivo, then chances are you've come to the right place. This drive is the right choice for upgrading your capacity. It is the ONLY brand that is supported by Tivo, your warranty will remain in effect, and it is a painless install.

This package is the right enclosure, the right eSATA cable, and most importantly the right drive. This drive is NOT a standard PC drive. It is specially designed for 24/7 spinning, low noise, PVR use.

Note that 1TB should give you over 165 hours of HD, not the "60 hours" in this listing. Also note that most Tivos don't recognize drives over 1TB, so spending more won't help you.

If you really want to get into the details of upgrading your Tivo storage, look here: [...]

All my info is current as of Spring 2009. Things change.

Those that live in the NY/NJ area and have Cablevision know that they changed most, if not all, of the regular channels to HD channels. So our DVR has been filling up faster than usual, and there is no way around it. Most of the popular channels are all in HD. So for the past month or so, my wife and I have been looking for a solution. Our DVR was always 70-80% full and we were constantly erasing stuff. I found the Western Digital My DVR Expander, and it was the solution to our problem. I called Cablevision customer support and asked them if it was compatible with our DVR. They said yes, and that it was actually the only one compatible, meaning that you can't just get any eSATA drive and plug it in. The My DVR Expander is formatted to function just like your DVR. I did read somewhere that only the 500 GB version is the only one compatible with the Scientific Atlanta Explorer, but the Cablevision customer support tech did not mention that.

It took one day to receive my package after ordering, AMAZING! I looked up the installation instruction on the Cablevision website and they were identical to the instructions that came with the drive. "Power off cable box, plug in the power cord for the DVR Expander, connect the eSATA cable, power on DVR Expander, and power on cable box, follow on screen instructions to format the drive." Simple right? You would think that, but I did not get the on screen instructions, so I knew something was wrong. I checked to see the about of space used, and it was still 85% full. I started to get a little frustrated, but I decided to try it again, thinking maybe I did something wrong. Followed the instructions again, and still it was not recognized. Now my frustration was starting to show, especially because I bought another one for our bedroom. I called Cablevision tech support, and spoke to high level tech guy. I explained the problem, and he said he doesn't understand why it wasn't working. He first said that maybe my DVR Expander was defective and to take it back. I said I can't do that. Then he came back and asked me if I had the 500 GB version or the 1 TB versions. I told him I had the 1 TB version, then he said that he checked with his supervisor and that this version is not compatible, and sorry for the inconvenience. Now I was furious, but I did not give up. I decided to try my own SIMPLE installation. With both the DVR Expander and the cable box powered on, I just pluged the eSATA cable to the back of the cable box, and VIOLA!!!! The on screen instruction came up asking to format the drive. It took less than one minute. I checked the space used, and I was delighted to see that it was only 10% full! The installation should have taken less than 2 minutes. You don't even have to wait for your cable box to reboot, which takes like 5 minutes or more.

Overall, I am very pleased with it so far. I've had it for two weeks now, and everything is working fine. I put my ear next to it, and I could barely hear it running. It has never gotten too hot, and I have it set next to my cable box in my entertainment center. If you are a cablevision customer, this is such a great upgrade, and it works fine. If you are having trouble, feel free to leave a comment.

When I saw Western Digital had come out with a 1 TB model, I decided to take the plunge and hoped it wouldn't exhibit the quality problems that plague so many new models. When the hard drive arrived, I connected to my HD TiVo with the included eSATA connector. Unfortunately, TiVo did not recognize the external hard drive despite numerous tries. After a bit of troubleshooting, I determined that the eSATA connector into the back of the My DVR Expander wasn;t making a solid connection. Nothing a little duct tape can't fix, right? I then enjoyed a wonderful month or so with the hard drive and was able to record over 100 programs in both HD and SD formats. Can't stay awake for the Tonight Show? No problem. I could record every night and not have to worry about running out of disk space.

Then a more serious quality problem emerged. Shortly after the disk space filled up, my TiVo froze in the middle of a program I was recording. Nothing I did could get it to restart. After a long phone call with TiVo technical support, together we identified that the DVR Expander had caused the meltdown. The only way to use TiVo again was to disconnect the hard drive (and lose ALL those recorded programs) and reboot without the external hard drive. What choice did I have? Fortunately, the drive was still under warranty.

I called Western Digital customer support, who assured me a new unit would be shipped in 3-5 business days. After a week, I checked its status on the WD website and read a notice explaining there were delays and it would be another 2 weeks. Another 2 weeks passed and I called again. The customer rep explained they were experiencing manufacturing problems with the new 1 TB model and were out of stock, but he would try to expedite my replacement request. Another 2 weeks and another call. This time the rep tells the problems are so severe, the company hasn't been able to make a single good unit since I first called and he could not assure me delivery "in any reasonable time frame." Holy Cow! So naturally I ask for a refund. The rep refuses my request for a refund because it's against company policy. So now it's been almost three months, I'm out the price of the hard drive and some recorded programs, and am on an indefinite wait for a replacement.

If you're willing to gamble, the 1 TB model is a great product concept and chances are your unit will work fine. If not, you might want to wait for Western Digital to work out the quality bugs or go with their tried-and-tested 500 GB model instead.

The drive works great now that I changed the eSATA cable. When I installed the drive it crashed my Tivo on a more than daily basis. I thought I would have to return it, but I asked on line about it and was told to try a SIIG brand eSATA cable. I was shocked that when I did change the cable the drive has worked great with no crashes since. Why they use a poor cable with an expensive drive I do not know.

The DirecTV website has instructions for how to hook up this external hard drive to your DirecTV HD DVR. However, it's very simple. Unplug the power connector to your DVR; hook up the eSata cable to both the DVR and the hard drive; plug in the hard drive and let it power up; then plug in the power cable to the DVR, and you're done. After about a week's use, it is working great and no complaints.

Here are some tips:

- The external hard drive acts as an alternative storage place; you cannot access the DVR's built-in storage while the external hard drive is hooked up. If you want to go back to view something stored on your DVR, you will have to reverse the installation procedure, then reinstall it when you want to use the external drive again. Nothing is erased on the DVR hard drive, it just isn't accessible when the external hard drive is connected.

- The eSata cable that came with the external hard drive worked fine with our DirecTV HD DVR. I purchased the SIIG cable as mentioned in some other reviews, but it wasn't necessary and I am returning it to Amazon. The cable that comes with the external hard drive is only about three feet long, so you may want a longer cable.

- The guide to upcoming shows, plus your list of shows you wish to record, is stored on the specific hard drive to which you are recording. Thus, when you hook up the new external hard drive, you will need to wait for the guide to populate (it took ours about 24 hours), then you will need to recreate your list of shows to record. This was a minor bother for us, but if you don't want to miss a favorite show, select a down time in between your favorite shows to install the device, let the guide get re-built, then create your recording list.

- According to DirecTV, the shows you record on the external hard drive are somehow linked to the specific DirecTV HD DVR it is physically connected to. Thus, you can't unplug the external hard drive then connect it to another DVR and view the shows remaining on the hard drive. It will have to be reformatted to be used with a different DVR, thus you will lose any remaining shows recorded on the external hard drive.

I have had this DVR Expander working on a DirectTV HR-21 DVR for about 6 months. Installation was a breeze. You just need to make sure you power on the external hard drive before you power on the DVR, after connecting the 2 by eStata cable. The problem that has emerged recently is that when it gets about half full, response time slows to a crawl when you are trying to move through menu functions. Searching for shows has become such a time consuming ordeal that I am considering disconnecting it and going back to the small internal drive that it replaced. The technical specs for the hard drive do not seem to be the problem (it runs at 7200 rpm and has transfer rate of 3gb/s). The problem must be that DirectTV's software cannot handle a large volume of data.

I received this DVR expander last week, and installed it onto my DirecTV DVR. There was no mention in the setup guide that it was compatible with DirecTV, but I went ahead, based on the information on Directv.com's TIPS & TRICKS section. Instead of keeping all of my extisting programs as I expected, the hard drive was reformatted, wiping out all my programs!

I'm pretty sure I followed the instructions exactly, so I don't know why this happened.

After the installation, I had 100% of the space available, and I've added some 20 or so hrs. of programs and still have around 96% of the space available.

If you have DirecTV, be aware that you may also lose your programs when you install.

Worked like a charm to significantly expand my DVR's memory. Very easy to hook up. I did order an upgraded eSATA cable instead of using the one that came with it. One thing, when you hook this up, it disables your current hard drive so anything you have on it can not be accessed while using the 1TB drive (I have DirecTV). You can go back and watch your old hard drive shows by unplugging the new drive and doing a hard start (unplug/replug) your DVR, it re-accesses your old drive. You can hook the new drive back up using the same process as before. Also, the shows you had set up to record on the original drive do not carry over, you have to set them up again on the new drive but once you've done that you can switch back and forth and the shows to record will stay in memory on both hard drives.

Although this product is "Tivo verified" this will work with DirecTV HDVDRs. I am running it on my HR20 and it works flawlessly. I currently have around 50 hours of HD programming on it and I still have over 70% space available. That being said there a few things DirecTV users should know

--This drive is not a supplement to your DVRs internal drive, it is a REPLACEMENT.
--When you plug in this drive and power back on your DVR (make sure you follow the installation instructions to the letter) it will be like turning on your DVR for the very first time. You hard drive will have nothing on it, all your favorite channels will be gone and so will your recordings, season passes, etc.. (not a big deal, it took me maybe an hour to re-set all my season passes)
--Your recordings from your internal drive have not been erased, merely overwritten by the new external drive. I imagine if you were to unplug the external drive the DVR would boot back up to the internal one with no problem, although I have not yet tried this.

Overall this is a must have for anyone who has to delete a program every time you record a new one, with this drive there will almost never be a scenario where you have to delete a program before you are ready.

The WD My DVR Expander is a standard eSATA external hard drive that also works beautifully with Tivo and several other common models of DVRs available from local cable providers.

I have Time Warner Cable service at home but my wife and I were always filling up the DVR built into our Time Warner Scientific Atlanta cable box. We kept filling up the DVR to 95-99 percent of maximum capacity and then having to delete old shows that we hadn't seen yet in order to make room for more shows.

After reading online that the Western Digital My DVR Expander was compatible with our model of Scientific Atlanta cable box/DVR, we decided to give this gizmo a try. I followed the instructions (very important since the cable box is picky about how you connect a DVR expander) and then waited about 10 minutes while the cable box reset itself, formatted the DVR Expander, and then checked my DVR.

All our previously-recorded DVR shows were still there on the DVR, but when I checked the capacity of the DVR it had changed from 93 percent full to only 11 percent full! This is the greatest addition to our entertainment center since we purchased an HDTV!

Now my wife and I have space on our Time Warner DVR to record all our shows and we rarely ever fill our DVR past 15-18 percent of its new capacity. I can't say enough good things about this product. The only way it could be better is if cable companies gave you one for free when you get DVR service.

If you have a compatible DVR or Tivo and need more space to record your favorite shows, this is the best product I've seen. Buy one right away ... you'll be glad you did.